


All the Choices in the World

by indevan



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Crimson Flower Route, Introspection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:20:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25852741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indevan/pseuds/indevan
Summary: For as much as he played things off, Sylvain knew that there were certain things at which he was very talented
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier, Sylvain Jose Gautier/Other(s)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 26





	All the Choices in the World

**Author's Note:**

> i did a meme on my twitter ( @smugsnail) asking what my "trademark" was a writer was and then to attempt to write a fic that doesn't include it. so my challenge was to include:  
> \- a meandering sort of prose with no dialogue  
> \- an interaction with no dialogue  
> \- no inside jokes (a la cookie puss)  
> \- no pre-1990 music (okay this one is kind of a cheat because i did a canon fic, but the title is NOT from a pre-1990 song)  
> \- very specific final thing that relates to [ethereally](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ethereally)

For as much as he played things off, Sylvain knew that there were certain things at which he was very talented. He knew of his own prowess the bedroom--practice makes perfect, after all. Every negative thing any of his partners could say about him, they could never come for him there. Sylvain prided himself on that, at least. His most recent bed warmer--wait, that was mean. Easier to think of them that way, though. Randolph. Caspar’s step-uncle or...something. Or at least he was. He died in the last battle, at the feet of the Emperor and Hubert. Loyal to a fault. Would have done numbers in Faerghus for sure.

Faerghus. Home. No, not anymore. Faerghus wasn’t home. Faerghus was the enemy because they were backed by the church. Really putting the “holy” in “The Holy Kingdom of Faerghus.” Sometimes Sylvain wondered how Dimitri was doing as King with Rhea breathing down his neck, but those were momentary fancies. He didn’t like to dwell on, well, much of anything, but he particularly didn’t like dwelling on thoughts on Faerghus or Dimitri or anything that was reminiscent of home.

There were others from his original class here fighting for Edelgard. Ashe, who carried so much anger towards the church for what they did to his adoptive father. Mercedes, but sometimes he forgot she was a Lion with the rest of them the way she bonded with that girl from the underground and her long lost baby brother. She looked at ease in the Empire, which made some sense since she hailed from there originally. He wondered what she thought of the war, devout as she was, but too often Mercedes turned discussions about herself to be about other people. Whenever Sylvian would try to talk to her, he ended up venting about his own issues only to apologize for the upheaval later.

The last from his house was Felix, who seemed more distant than ever. Standing in the bloody haze that was the aftermath of a battle, wiping blood off of his blade with his hand. The faraway look in his eyes and how he prowled the hallways at night. Once, when sleep was evading him, Sylvain had taken a midnight walk and stumbled upon Felix in the dining hall, hunched over one of the long tables, sharpening knives at a feverish pace. Between other visitors, sometimes Felix would come to Sylvain’s bed and demand that he “obliterate” him. Sylvain knew he ought to refuse, but he was weak, especially weak to Felix. Felix never stayed after they had sex (Sylvain used to tease him by calling it “making love” but he knew that that wasn’t what it was). He would stand up and leave without sparing him a glance. He was going through something and Sylvain figured that he would wait for him on the other side or he wouldn’t. They had a promise to keep, after all.

Their old house split down the middle. If there was something symbolic about it, Sylvain didn’t want to dwell on it. Shove it away as best he can. Lock it in the darkest corner of his mind that gathered dust and cobwebs. Now that was what he did best.

The Gautiers ignored dysfunction until they couldn’t. Sylvain often thought that the fox on the family heraldry ought to be looking away in the other direction. His father was happy to let Miklan grow more and more resentful and violent as the years progressed. If Sylvain showed up with bruises or welts or a black eye, he asked him how training was going. When he was down the well, it was a visiting Duke Fraldarius who noticed him and got him out. His mother drank her issues away, a solution that was looking more and more keen to Sylvain by the day. If there wasn’t a booze shortage, he would probably be downing bottles daily. Make it burn.  _ Obliterate me, _ to quote Felix.

It was less depressing to think about how his father was reacting to Sylvain being on the side of the Empire, if he reacted at all. He hadn’t asked for the Lance back, anyhow. Maybe he convinced himself that Sylvain was in Fhirdiad, advising Dimitri on what the next move should be. Very Gautierian approach. Sylvain would laugh about it if he had anyone to laugh about it with. Ashe and Mercedes wouldn’t get it and he didn’t think he had seen Felix crack even the slightest smile in three years.

He didn’t interact as much with the “Black Eagle Strike Force” as Edelgard called her closest confidantes. Sylvain would have thought that they would have maybe amended that name over five years later considering everyone was an adult now and could admit that it was...a choice.

Dorothea mostly ignored him after their back and forth back in during the academy days. She mostly spent her days wandering around wrapped in a fur-lined cloak and staring vacantly at the sky. If he thought she would want to hear it, he would have tried to comfort her. Not that he was particularly good at comforting people without using his body. One time, when they were kids, he had tried to tell Ingrid that it was alright that her favorite horse died, because “we all die eventually.”

Bernadetta didn’t scamper anymore when she saw him, which was an improvement on before. She had a lot more confidence and had even asked Sylvain for her help in one of her crafts without stumbling over herself or stuttering. He didn’t know what she was going to do with a black and purple embroidered flower, but he was always willing to help his favorite contemporary author.

He had taken Linhardt to bed once. He had come up to him, clapped his hand on his elbow, and said he wanted to test a hypothesis. What the experiment was, Sylvain had no idea, but he had had to stop mid-coitus because Linhardt had fallen asleep. Now he saw him walking arm in arm with Caspar and all he could think of was that Caspar had to shout in bed and that it probably was good for keeping Linhardt awake.

He didn’t get to be part of the Strike Force and so he went where he was needed, ran through who he had to ran through, scorched whoever needed a good burning with fire magic. He was a cog. Wouldn’t his father be proud? More than once, Sylvain was aware of eyes on him from the shadows, which meant that Hubert was spying on him. Whether it was because he was from the Kingdom and had been friends with Dimitri or because he spent time with Bernadetta was a matter of debate. Either way, he pretended not to see him. Logged his suspicion and watchful eye back in that corner of his mind again. It was getting cluttered. His spying, at least, was proof that people were  _ aware  _ of him. That he was real. Sex helped, too. It made him  _ aware _ of himself, at least for a little while, and how his body worked. How he could coax pleasure from his partners.

Sylvain sat on the grassy patch that served as the monastery’s cemetery. Stared at the graves. Randolph’s body was sent back to Bergliez territory. No one was buried here. Shallow graves on the battlefield while Mercedes spoke a prayer over the pitiful mounds of dirt. If he peered over the wall, he could see Byleth--no longer his professor, he figured, considering he was twenty-five--riding horses with Jeritza. That was a fairly funny sight because, for all of his abilities and talents, Byleth could  _ not _ ride a horse to save his life. It was a bit strange, because it meant that there were things out there that he was bad at, but maybe this would keep him humble. Special crest, special relic, none of the baggage that went with it. Let him fall off a damn horse every once in a while.

From where he was sitting, though, he could only faintly hear Jeritza’s low, dragging drawl of a voice say, “I thought you said you had done this before” and, as funny as it was, he didn’t want to get back up again to peer over the side.

He was aware of a presence behind him and Sylvain didn’t have to turn to know who it was. He heard the muted click of Felix’s boots on the stone steps that led down to the cemetery. The displacement of grass between them until he was behind him. Sylvain stared at Jeralt’s death date, still looking newly carved compared to everyone else who was in the cemetery.

Leather on leather moving against itself as Felix sat down. In his peripherals, Sylvain saw him flick his cape out so he wasn’t sitting on it. He wondered what he wanted. As morbid as he knew himself to be, fucking in a cemetery in broad daylight was a bold move. Certainly one that Felix wouldn’t want to partake in.

Felix’s hand shot out and grabbed his. The leather of his gloves felt rough on Sylvain’s palm. Unlike Felix, he was dressed casually in a linen shirt and breeches. There was no battle, so no need for armor. Felix was always ready for a battle.

He turned to look at him and saw that Felix was staring at his collarbone. There was a different set in his face than usual. His mouth wasn’t so tight, the veins around it not as blue against his skin. His eyes looked almost soft, almost as they had before the Tragedy. A lifetime before a lifetime ago.

Felix squeezed his hand tightly in his, his brows lowering and his mouth settling into its typical scowl. Sylvain, unsure what else to do, squeezed his hand back. He knew what he did best. He knew about sex and shuffling things back into the deepest, darkest corners of his mind. He knew about death. What he didn’t know was comfort, if that was even what Felix wanted. If it was what he wanted.

Felix dropped his head on his shoulder, his own clenched and tight. Sylvain slid his eyes shut to shut off the buzzing in his head and settled his own head over top of his. They stayed like that, among the dead, even as he wondered when the two of them would join them one day--the same day, just as they’d promised.


End file.
